We are delighted to see gold getting smacked down. From the International Business Times: Gold prices posted their biggest two-session drop in 30 years Monday as retail investors and large institutional speculators capitulated to a six-month downdraft that accelerated in the last week into bear market territory. The violence of Monday’s plunge reinforced the view that the 12-year bull market in gold is finished. In New York trading, a troy ounce of gold closed at $1,360.60, a more than 9% plunge and the most extreme drop since 1983. By the close of trading Monday, the price was off more than 13%, or more than $200 per ounce, from last Thursday’s closing price of $1,564.90.

Where should gold be? In terms of buying power, we calculated that an ounce of gold should sell for between $800 and $1,200 an ounce. There are dark clouds hovering over the world’s financial system. Gold is the logical shelter. You can’t buy gold for $800 an ounce partly because so many people see the storm coming. Once the storm hits, you may be glad you bought gold at any price.

We spent all of yesterday bumping along dirt roads on our way from the ranch to a small seminar organized by our old friend Doug Casey. One of the major topics: What’s ahead for the gold price? Here, in advance, we give our view. Gold took off like a rocket at the start of the year. But despite rising global political tensions, and the Fed’s continuing economic pretensions, this week, gold started to look more like a discarded booster engine falling back to Earth.

How do you like that? Dow off 43 points on Friday. No bounce back from the big loss on Thursday. And gold keeps going up. It now seems to be aiming for $1,400 an ounce. Remember the sentiment at the end of 2013? Gold was sure to go down. Everybody said so. Instead, gold and gold mining stocks have done quite well, thank you. The big gold ETF, GLD, is up over 14% so far in 2014. And the big gold miners ETF, GDX, is up 31%. US stocks, meanwhile, are vulnerable. Want to make a simple trade?

Where is Dillon, South Carolina? Surely, they have put up a monument to their hometown boy, Ben Shalom Bernanke. Or maybe it is in nearby Augusta, Georgia, where he was born? Bernanke is now an employee of policy think tank the Brookings Institute. Or a Distinguished Fellow in Residence in Economic Studies, to be precise. He’ll no doubt have more time on his hands after his hectic days as “Rescuer-in-Chief” at the Fed. We should wander over to Dillon; perhaps we’ll run into him at a local strip club. We have a few questions we’d like to put to him. But wait. Does he have bodyguards?

The Dow rose 18 points yesterday, but doesn’t seem in a hurry to go anywhere. Gold fell $14 an ounce. At $1,327 an ounce, the gold price is still about 12% higher than where it started the year. Our question for today: Is there really a new bull market for the yellow metal? Of course, the answer is only known to the gods and the NSA. For us mere mortals, it fits comfortably into the vast library of which we have forgotten the address and lost the key. Only in the fullness of time will we have the answer. In the meantime, we await developments.